Marvel Studios' decision to shift into television with the launch of the Disney Plus streaming service was inevitable. After all, it's one that the MCU had made before (remember Agent Carter and Agents of SHIELD?), as it was an opportunity to extend the story of the Marvel Cinematic Universe beyond the films in projects that explore character journeys in much more meaningful ways.
As the years have rolled by since its Emmy-winning launch with WandaVision, the results have been somewhat mixed, with certain titles taking the franchise to new heights and others offering up new lows. The standard on the big screen began to decline too, with general public opinion being that Marvel had spread itself too thin and the overexposure was hurting the MCU.
Marvel is still a titan of Hollywood but it isn't the undefeated monster capable of drawing everyone to movie theaters that it was in 2019. This has been reflected on TV too as some shows have underperformed over the past few years, That includes a particularly surprising one, as new data reveals that it became the worst-performing show in terms of the most well-known metric for tracking TV ratings.
Daredevil: Born Again becomes first MCU show to never chart in Nielsen Top 10
Daredevil: Born Again has made the worst kind of history as it has become the first and only live-action MCU show to never once chart on Nielsen's Top 10 Original Streaming Shows list throughout its run. The series, which streamed new episodes on Disney Plus between March 4 and April 15 failed to break onto the list, which is something that has never happened before now.
To make matters worse, it joins Secret Invasion as only the second live-action MCU project to miss out on appearing on Nielsen's overall show Top 10. That's not a record it wants to hold either, for Secret Invasion is widely-regarded as the worst of the franchise's Disney Plus offerings (in spite of a fantastic performance from Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury) and its underperformance can likely be attributed to people tapping out throughout its run. But that's not a problem that Daredevil should have faced.
Born Again received critical acclaim upon its release, with fans praising the hard-hitting action and violence that made the original Daredevil series such a vivid experience. Although it did have some notable teething issues in those first four episodes (as Marvel Studios ultimately decided to oversee a creative reboot four episodes in and had to merge old footage with new footage), it delivered for the most part, with the final few episodes among the very best hours of television that the MCU has produced thus far.
So what went wrong? Some fans have understandably pointed out Daredevil: Born Again's R rating, acknowledging that this automatically limits a large portion of Marvel's core audience from tuning in (younger viewers) and would cut down the viewership. That's a great point, but it also didn't prove to be a problem for Echo, which focused on a lesser-known character, brandished an R rating, and still managed to land at No. 10 in the Nielsen list whenever it was released (although it was admittedly a binge-watch, which gave it a huge advantage as all five episodes count towards minutes watched).
Another factor could be the level of competition that Born Again faced. While Echo premiered in early January (when a lot of shows would have been off air, on hiatus, or preparing to premiere), Daredevil premiered in the spring, when it had to compete for a spot on Nielsen's Original Streaming Top 10 with the likes of The White Lotus, 1923, and Netflix's The Residence, as well as evergreen phenomenons Grey's Anatomy and Bluey.
It's worth pointing out that Daredevil: Born Again performed well for Disney Plus, opening with 7.5 million views across five days, but the issue seems to be that it didn't have the momentum that people were expecting. For a revival of a beloved Netflix show that had been off the air for nearly 10 years and a hard-hitting R-rated chapter of the MCU focused on a well-known, well-established Marvel hero, expectations were very high. And, as impressive as those opening numbers were, they started a conversation about the show underperforming.
Previous MCU Disney Plus series Agatha All Along premiered to 9.3 million viewers across its first seven days, meaning that Daredevil just about matched it or fell short of that. Those numbers are fantastic for Agatha (as it focused on a lesser-known Marvel character and was the cheapest Disney Plus series of them all) but they aren't quite as good for a well-known character like Daredevil.
Although Daredevil's viewership remained solid and steady throughout its run, it never managed to break out of the box - which is likely the reason that it never made it onto the Nielsen Top 10. Agatha, on the other hand, opened well with a performance that placed it on the list in its opening week (although it wouldn't have if it opened in the same week as Daredevil due to the stacked competition) and returned to the list for its two-part finale, which racked up an incredible 744 million minutes viewed. Unfortunately, Daredevil's viewing figures never came close to that.
If Daredevil had aired in Agatha's fall timeslot, it would have ended up in the Top 10 for its premiere episodes as its 465 million minutes viewed in its first week was higher than Agatha's 426 million minutes. That said, it never built momentum in the way that Agatha did, as audiences continued to talk about that show throughout its run and the mysteries at its core, which ultimately resulted in the colossal 744 million minutes that its finale accrued.
The good news is that Daredevil: Born Again will return for a second season, which is currently in production in New York. What's even better is that Marvel revealed at the Disney Upfronts that it was happy with its solid viewership, particularly as it raised the viewership of the original Marvel Netflix shows, which made the jump over to Disney Plus a number of years ago.